You should know how to present a session. In fact, you should be standing up on the stage where I will be standing while presenting this session. It's not about becoming an industry expert, an MVP or an AWS Community Builder. No, it's about learning how to take an idea to your management team and convince them that you can help the business. It's about teaching new techniques to your peers. It's about expanding your own knowledge on a topic as you prepare a session, present it, and then answer questions. There are very good, career driven, reasons for you to learn to present.
This session will go over how to put together a session. From choosing meaningful titles to putting together abstracts, you'll get the information you need to get started. We'll also cover how to put together a session, demonstrations, and more. We'll also cover how to rehearse to get ready for your session. Finally, we'll cover giving the session, handling questions, hecklers and more.
You should be standing at the front of the room, giving your own session. Please, come here, learn why, and learn how. It will help you in your career.
5. • Convince your team
• Teach your peers
• Get a new job
• Become an MVP!!!
• Totally kidding
Why Present?
6. • Easiest first presentation, teach a
skill
• Next easiest, explain the solution
to a problem
• For short presentations, focus on a
single idea/concept/point
• For longer presentations, think
about telling a story
• Don’t try to boil the ocean,
meaning, you can’t cover
everything about a given topic, so
focus on a few important points
Ideas & Stories
7. • The only thing some
people read
• Clarity is king
• Cute/Funny can work, or
can hurt
• Understand your
audience
Title
8. • Clarity, clarity, clarity
• Steal my structure
• A) Define a problem or difficulty
• B) Describe how the session will help address that
problem
• C) Tell how the attendees can immediately apply this
at work
• Or don’t, it’s on you
• Grammar matters, as does spelling
• Cute/funny frequently loses
• Create multiple abstracts, even for the
same presentation
• Submit more than one abstract, on
more than one topic
Abstract
9. • Decide early on what and how you intend to present
• My rough structure
• A) Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em
• B) Tell ‘em
• C) Tell ‘em what you told ‘em
• All slides, one slide, no slides
• Slides as guideposts vs. slides as documentation
(this is more the latter)
• Live demos, no demos, recorded demos
• Presentation time is important
• 20 minutes or less, you can communicate one (1) idea, focus
• Remember, focus on your audience
• You can mix demos and slides, or, do the slides, then
do the demos
Structure
10. • Are you doing demos?
They’re first
• Sketch an outline using any
tool (I write mine down first)
• Put the outline into slides
• Expand the ideas there
• Do the demos really work?
• Don’t be afraid to rearrange
as you go
Preparation
11. • Rehearse
• But not too much
• Record yourself
• Rehearse out loud (yes,
my family laughs at me a
lot)
• Did the demos work in
the rehearsal?
More Preparation
12. • Have someone you trust
review the slides and/or
watch your recording
• Take feedback as a gift
• Practice using ZoomIt (if
using demos)
• Otherwise, make the fonts BIG
• Did you reset after the
demos?
Still More Preparation
13. • Humor is extremely subjective
• You can, no, you will, offend some
people just by trying to be funny
• Know your audience
• Personally, I avoid risqué or ribald
humor
• Attacking others, especially in the
audience is dangerous
• Self-deprecating humor frequently
works well
• As with life, moderation
Humor
14. • Style generally comes with experience,
so don’t sweat it too much
• Be comfortable
• Few people can adopt a persona, so
don’t try unless you know you can
• Remember, your style should both
support your message, and speak to
your audience
• Don’t worry about all those books and
videos on presenting. You can break
most of the “rules” and give a good
presentation.
Style
15. • The audience wants you to succeed
• Questions, you can decide how you want to
deal with questions, just let the audience
know
• If you take questions, repeat the question
• For the audience
• To be sure you understood it so you can better answer it
• Hecklers/Ramblers/Stump the Chump
• Remember, it’s your presentation
• It’s OK to suggest something be taken after the session
• It’s OK to say “I don’t know”
• Relax
• Breathe
• Speaker slower than you think you should
Presenting Points